Shohei Ohtani the pitcher is outpacing the hitter, maybe all the way to a Cy Young

What’s next for Los Angeles Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani? The best baseball player in the world regularly exhausts the superlatives and, it seems, achieves something without precedent on a weekly basis. That figures to continue being the case, but the 2026 Major League Baseball season to date is presenting us with a different sort of Ohtani — one whose value is driven by his pitching rather than his hitting.

Going into Sunday’s slate of games, Ohtani has a WAR of 0.7 as the Dodgers’ primary designated hitter. As a pitcher, though, Ohtani has been almost twice as valuable with a WAR of 1.3 through his first five starts of the season. Now that he’s into his 30s, it’s not all that surprising that Ohtani’s (still immense) value would start to take on a different texture.

All of it raises a tantalizing possibility for Ohtani in 2026. Here’s what his manager, Dave Roberts, said back in February about Ohtani’s outlook for the current season:

“I think there’s certainly a lot more in there, and regardless of my expectations for him, his are gonna, you know, exceed those. You know, I think it’s fair to say he expects to be in the Cy Young conversation, but you know, we just want to be healthy and make starts and all the numbers and statistics will take care of themselves. But man, this guy is such a disciplined worker and expects the most from himself.”

Ohtani has won an MVP award in exactly half of his completed MLB seasons to date. While his pitching significantly contributed to each of those pieces of hardware, his top-shelf production at the plate was the prime mover. Only once has he placed in the top 10 of the Cy Young vote, and that was in 2022 (fifth place in American League balloting). As individual achievements go, a player who authored the first 50-50 season and then followed it up with a 55-homer campaign going on to win the Cy Young would be perhaps the most unthinkable thing in Ohtani’s growing cornucopia of unthinkable things.

On that point, here’s the current National League WAR leaderboard for pitchers:

As you can see, Ohtani is very much in the mix and within margin-for-error range of the top spot. No, WAR isn’t the sole determinant of who wins the Cy Young, but it’s a useful proxy for such things. Much, of course, will be determined by what kind of workload Ohtani is permitted as a pitcher this season. The Dodgers, who are going for the elusive three-peat in 2026, famously keep their gears oiled for October/November, and the priority as the season deepens will be keeping Ohtani healthy and in peak form for the playoffs. Let’s first note that the standings may not permit the Dodgers the luxury of easing off their core performers during the second half of the season. That’s to say, competitive playoff races may demand that Roberts field his best on a near-daily basis all the way through late September.

Second, Roberts and the Dodgers have already begun giving Ohtani a DH “off day” on those occasions when he’s the starting pitcher. Here’s Roberts again on Ohtani just last week:

“His goal is to make every start, and with that, there has to be some compromise.”

Yes, there’s a governor in place on Ohtani’s usage, but it’s Ohtani the hitter who’s deferring to Ohtani the pitcher — all so, in Roberts’ own words, he can take every turn on the bump. The Dodgers, thanks to their impressive depth, run a six-man rotation and probably will continue to do so as long as that depth permits. That means every turn would give Ohtani 27 starts or so. That would put Ohtani at something close to a qualifying number of innings, and these days that’s enough to clear the workload bar for Cy Young consideration, at least if you’re not Mason Miller.

As for the more general drift of Ohtani’s hitting and pitching, let’s have a closer look at the early trend that may wind up putting a Cy within Ohtani’s grasp.

Ohtani the hitter in 2026

Let’s straightaway note that Ohtani is still a highly productive hitter with a 136 OPS+ on the season. In other words, Ohtani’s drop-off is far better than most hitters’ peaks. That said, it is a drop-off: over the past three full seasons, Ohtani has an OPS+ of 184. If you look at xwOBA, which evaluates a hitter’s deserved level of production based on quality of contact, Ohtani has been pretty unlucky this season, and it will be the opposite of shocking if he gets lava hot for a week or so and finds something close to his accustomed level.

Even so, he has experienced broad-based decline at the level of the batted ball. While his average exit velocity, maximum exit velocity, hard-hit rate, expected slugging percentage, and damage on contact remain the envy of almost every other hitter, they’ve also degraded significantly relative to his pre-2026 standards. The thing about great players is they can still be great even amid decline.

Let’s emphasize again that it’s early May, and Ohtani is nothing if not still fully capable of, say, a five-homer series, which would change the tenor of this discussion. For now, though, Ohtani the hitter has ceded ground to …

Ohtani the pitcher in 2026

That’s a sparkling ERA, to say the least, and if Ohtani had a qualifying number of innings, he’d lead the majors in that category by a noteworthy margin. That comes to an ERA+ of 688 (!), and it’s backed up by an FIP of 1.98 (he had an FIP of 1.90 last season, so such underlying dominance isn’t entirely new). He’s yet to allow a home run, he’s struck out 28.6% of opposing hitters, and he’s logged a quality start in all five trips to bump.

From a stuff standpoint, Ohtani still has the elite fastball velocity, and he still has the overstuffed, seven-pitch repertoire. Given what seems to be Ohtani’s increased focus on the pitching side of his game, having stuff and command of such a deep mix is enough to afford utter dominance. Ohtani, though, seems to have made some subtle adjustments this season on the mound. For starters, he’s added significant movement to his curve and cutter and modestly improved the break on his slider and sinker. As well, Ohtani has adjusted by increasing his use of his splitter and curve while de-emphasizing his slider.

No, Ohtani isn’t going to continue running an ERA of 0.60, in part because he’s not going to continue running a BABIP of .233. Even so, enough elements are in place to suggest he’s capable of a sustained higher tier on the mound. If indeed he is, then Ohtani might pitch and hit his way to World Series glory and individual glory as opposed to, you know, hit and pitch his way to those same things.

It’s always something with this guy.